Shawn Buchanan: The Quiet Lion

The $25,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event at the 2010 World Series of Poker isn’t the first place where young poker professional Shawn Buchanan has made his mark on the tournament trail.

In the first half of 2010, Buchanan has won nearly $1.5 million. He finished third in the World Poker Tour Championship in April, which was good for $587,906. He also cashed in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic main event in March, and for good measure, he cashed in the high-roller events at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and the North American Poker Tour event at Mohegan Sun.

He is at his best when the buy-in is sky-high and the talent level is at an altitude to match. “It seems like I play my best game against great players. I know how everyone thinks, so I’m patient and pick my spots, whereas when I am at a table where I don’t know anyone, I play too many hands and it backfires a lot of the time. I was drawn to the $25,000 event because it had the best competition,” said Buchanan.

At the WSOP this summer, he has found another level and has cashed eight times. He is tied with Allen Kessler for the most in-the-money finishes at the 2010 WSOP, and is just two behind the all-time record for cashes in a single year, held by Nikolay Evdakov.

The success he has found this year is not an anomaly; he has been one of the most consistent players on the tournament trail since he won the WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship in June 2007. He has been playing poker for nine years now, and since he booked his first tournament cash in 2004, he has won $4,019,080.

He was attracted to poker by a competitive background in sports, and he got his start by playing $6-$12 limit hold’em. “I enjoyed learning the game like that, but I was glad I found the no-limit part of it, because limit is boring for me. After that, I made the transition to online play, and went from there. I’ve played just as much live as I have online, though,” said Buchanan. He said the secret to his success is that he always keeps learning and adapting, because his opponents are surely doing the same thing, and he has to keep pace.

His career stats are impressive. He has 17 WSOP cashes, and 10 cashes in WPT main events. In the past four years, he has accumulated at least 1,000 Card Player Player of the Year points each year, which is a level of consistency that few professionals can match during that period.

While he is not normally thought of as an online player, he has shown some skill in that arena, as well. He has four PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker final tables and two World Championship of Online Poker final tables to his credit. His biggest online score came in 2007 when he won event No. 19 ($500 pot-limit Omaha) at the WCOOP.

Buchanan, for all of his success, is an unassuming guy who reminds you of a humble friend from back home. Part of that might be due to his friendly and polite Canadian nature (he is from Vancouver, BC), but for someone who has achieved so much during the last couple of years, his character is a breath of fresh air. While a lot of young poker players tend to have narcissistic egos born out of youthful success, Buchanan shows no such demeanor. He always has time to say hello or engage in a quick chat in the hallways at major tournament stops, and his good-natured humor has seen him through some pretty tough losses at the poker table.

One such loss resulted from the ace on the river that knocked him out of the $25,000 event, but that was just the second time this year that a bad beat cost him a crucial pot. At the WPT Championship, when the action was three-handed, he called all in preflop with pocket queens against David Williams, who had moved all in with pocket nines. A 9 fell like a dagger on the flop, and it knocked Buchanan out of the tournament in third place. “I really wanted this last one [the $25,000 WSOP event]; that’s just poker; it sucks that it was on the last card. I thought my most disappointing hand of the year was going to be the queens at the WPT, but a couple of months later, I get it again. That’s the way it goes, though,” said Buchanan.

He plans to keep playing in all of the major-tournament main events in the future, and sees himself playing at the WSOP 10 years from now. If he can sustain the success that he has found during the past four years, he may very well be challenging the all-time career tournament earnings record a decade from now.